Open Exhibits, now embarking on its third year, is committed to the museum open source initiative. In collaboration with GestureWorks, Open Exhibits has developed two open standard markup languages called Creative Markup Language (CML) and Gesture Markup Language (GML). The Creative Markup Language allows museum staff to style and add content to an application without recompiling the application so that museums may edit the exhibit throughout its life span without the need for a programmer. The Gesture Markup Language allows the customization of gestures that, like CML, are external to the application. In addition, CML has an ActionScript-based software development kit (SDK) that is open source under the Simplified BSD license.

The GestureWorks GML SDK is closed source, but freely available for non-commercial use through the Open Exhibits license agreement.

Open Exhibits also has a growing number of exhibits templates that can be easily customized and styled by both programmers and non-programmers.

Looking ahead, Open Exhibits will soon add 3D support for both input and display. We are currently busy programming 3D gesture support for the Leap Motion Controller and are working with the Away3D team to produce a 3D CML extension. Expect the new release in early Fall.